Mark Mitin

Born June 22 (July 5), 1901, in Zhitomir. Soviet philosopher and public figure. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AN SSSR; 1939). Member of the CPSU since 1919.

Mitin graduated from the philosophy division of the Institute of the Red Professorial in 1929. He served as deputy director of the Communist Academy, deputy director of the Institute of Philosophy, editor in chief of the journal Pod znamenem marksizma (Under the Banner of Marxism; 1930–44), and director of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the CPSU (1939–44). From 1950 to 1956 he was editor in chief of the newspaper Za prochnyi mir, za narodnuiu demokratiiu; from 1956 to 1960, chairman of the board of the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge; and from 1960 to 1967, editor in chief of the journal Voprosy filosofii (Problems of Philosophy). Since 1967 he has been chairman of the Scientific Council on Foreign Ideological Trends of the Social Sciences Section of the Presidium of the AN SSSR.

Mitin’s main works are devoted to the Leninist phase in the development of Marxist philosophy, to partiinost’ (party-mindedness) in philosophy, to the theory of the state and socialist democracy, and to problems of epistemology (the theory of reflection and the role of semiotic systems in knowledge). He has also written on the history of philosophy, and he has developed a critique of bourgeois ideology and opportunist concepts.

In 1943, Mitin was awarded the State Prize of the USSR for his role in producing the History of Philosophy (1940–43). Elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Eighteenth through Twentieth Party Congresses, he was a deputy to the third through fifth Convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, three other orders, and various medals.